Sonos Roam Bluetooth Speaker Extended Review

Hello, everybody, and welcome to my channel. Today, we're going to review the Sonos Roam, their first portable Bluetooth speaker. I'm going to compare it to the JBL Flip 5 just because it's the same size, and more or less, the same price. The Flip 5 is also the best Bluetooth speaker that I ever reviewed. I'm also going to tear it down and have a look inside the components and the batteries.

We'll start with a look around the speaker. It does look very nice, and it looks like it's well built. It's got a metal grill in the front. The control buttons are on the side. We've got the volume down, volume up, play, pause, and the microphone button to mute it if you wish to. On the right side, there's not much to see. Underneath, there is the Qi wireless charging coil. There are four tiny rubber feet at the bottom, and at the back, we've got the USB-C charging ports and the power button. Overall, the Sonos Roam looks very well-designed. It looks nice, and it's got a premium look to it.

I had the Sonos Roam for about a month. I tested it with lots of genres of music, and it seemed to deliver. It's loud enough, and the sound is clear. It's got bass to it. The highs are nice. The only thing I've noticed was that it was losing charge very quickly, and the reason for that, I believe, is if I don't turn it off, it stays on. It doesn't actually go to automatic shutdown on its own. Also, every time I open the Sonos app, for some reason, the speaker will wake up on its own as well without me actually playing music through it.

Another thing I have noticed is that it's got low latency, which means when I was comparing it with the JBL Flip 5 speaker, the sounds on the Sonos was coming out faster than it was coming out on the JBL. It means if I was watching a movie, there will be no issues with the lip sync. Another thing is, when I was looking inside the Sonos Roam, the components looked very premium, and the job, the soldering, the cabling, the gluing, the screws, and the speaker quality, were all of premium quality, which explains the reason for Sonos' high price. That's what they say sometimes "you get what you pay for."

Inside the box, there were a few things. There is the manual and a quick guide. It's got some directions on how to use the buttons on the top. There is also the USB-C cable. The Sonos Roam came with a nice cover. Let's play some music and see what it does.

First of all, we need to switch the Sonos Roam on. You only need to press the power button once very quickly. There is no sound when it comes on. Okay, now we need to put it on pairing mode for Bluetooth, so we need to press the power button and hold for a few seconds. To start pairing it with your Bluetooth device, while it's switched on, you need to press and hold the power button for a few seconds. Now, it's in pairing mode.

Watch the test from 3:38 to 6:40.

Here is just a quick reminder. All my music is on a video that I'll put on the description where you can see and check all the list, so if you're interested in one song, you can find it easily. Let's just test the Sonos Roam.

Watch the test from 7:17 to 7:47.

Here, I'm going to compare the Sonos Roam to the JBL Flip 5, one of my favorite speakers of 2020. First, I'm going to play the music on the Sonos, and I'm going to put it full volume, slowly, slowly. I'll do the same later with the JBL Flip 5. By the way, throughout the whole video, there is no EQ switched on. It's all just plain, flat sound.

Watch the test from 7:57 to 8:40.

Let's move on to the Flip 5. It's the same song, same volume, maximum volume. It's louder. I can hear and feel it.

As you can see, they're both more or less the same size. They're both in the portable category. There are also some other favorite speakers that I have for the same price. There is the Soundcore Motion+. Obviously, this is slightly bigger, but it sits in the same category of portable speakers. There is the JBL Charge 5. This is also an excellent speaker. There is the Tribit StormBox speaker here. That's coming soon. I'm going to review that in the near future. Stay tuned for that. Out of these, my favorite is always the Flip 5, and I'm sure you heard that in my sound demo.

Does that mean the Sonos Roam is not a great speaker? No, it is a great speaker. It's well-built, and it probably will outclass all of these in terms of how it's built and how it's put together. Components are premium. It does sound very clear when I was playing some music at medium volume. It does sound good, so I would recommend it. It's just not the best for your money. If you want the best for your money, it's the JBL Flip 5. The Sonos is great at latency, so if you want to connect it to your Bluetooth TV or your phone or tablet, and you want to listen or watch a movie, I would recommend the Sonos because the latency is superb on it. The other speakers, they all have a long latency, and you will have a problem with lip sync.

Watch the test from 10:23 to 11:37.

Talking about latency, let's give that a test. I'm going to connect my tablet to the JBL Flip 5 first. I just need to find a sweet spot. It's about 279. Let's just pause that and then let's check the latency on the Sonos Roam. Obviously, the lower the latency, the better it is. So, yes, about 200 beats per minute is when the clicking sound is corresponding to the light, the flashing light. That's about 80 beats per minute less than the JBF Flip 5.

Watch another demo from 11:38 to 16:04.

All right. That sounded so good, incredible. I think it did even sound better than when I had the mesh on top of it. The speaker, when I close the cover, it's making some racking noise. That's because the screws are not all in, and there is some escaping. When I close the screws and I seal it properly, then it would sound as normal again. I also noticed that the tweet is making some fantastic sounds. I can hear it so crystal clear. Let's do it again.

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I would give this speaker 8 out of 10. It's has great sound. The app is very good. It's well-built. It's a great design. I like the built-in NFC and Qi wireless charging. I like that they included the microphone in the front, behind the grill. It's very light and portable. It's great that it connects to wireless Wi-Fi and Bluetooth at the same time. I hope other companies will take on Sonos' great ideas and copy them or even improve it.

Okay, now to the things that I didn't like. First of all, the battery life wasn't great. I had problems with it. I'm used to Bluetooth speakers turning themselves off after a while. This one didn't stay on. Also, every time I opened the Sonos app, It automatically connects to this one, switches it on, and then leaves it on. Hopefully, that can be fixed with a firmware update. I wish it had an AUX port, but like other companies, they have removed that. I didn't like the black on black buttons. You can't see anything.

The speaker can do with a little bit more bass. It would be nice if they added a bass boost or any UNCLEAR on the app. My overall score for this Bluetooth speaker would be an 8 out of 10. My best and favorite Bluetooth speaker of 2020 was the JBL Flip 5, and I gave that a solid 9 out of 10. There isn't any 10 out of 10 Bluetooth speaker, so please subscribe so you can see my future videos, and let's hope we're going to find a 10 out of 10 Bluetooth speaker together in 2021. Thank you very much for watching, and I'll see you on another one. Bye for now.